Debt Dumpers - 2016

[Jen and Ashwin]

Since I know we are done for 2016 (using YNAB and last month's income), I thought I'd add a little summary here...

When my student loans came due in Summer 2014, I started reading up on them, the payment plans, finance blogs, snowball vs interest rate to pay them off early... and I made some extra payments here and there, paid off two small, high interest loans. Df and I got engaged in early 2015 and we squirreled away money for a wedding and possibly a house. Currently, we've been living with his parents since just before we got engaged - first it was until I found a job, then to save for the wedding, etc.

At the beginning of 2016, I owed around $28k and DF owed around $26k in student loans. Around March/April, we made the decision to push our wedding back about a year due to some family drama, and decided to really start paying extra on our student loans. We also started using YNAB to budget. We figured out what monthly savings amounts fit in our budget, figured out how much we could save for our goals (wedding, honeymoon, down payment) with our new timeline (we've always planned on moving out around the wedding), and took the extra money we'd saved up and each made a payment into our loans on May 1st : $6300 each.

Since then, we've worked up a budget that accounts for each of us paying an extra $300 on our loans each month. When we do the next month's budget, we take any extra we made over our typical paychecks, split it, and add it to our extra payments. I was still really surprised when I added up what we paid on our loans this year: $28,400! Our minimum payments at the beginning of the year were $785 a month, so after taking out our $6300 lump payments we averaged around $1300 a month. Really it was more than that because we didn't pay any extra for the first few months this year. We've gone from 18 loans together to 9, and our minimum payments are now $450 a month.

I really enjoy this thread, reading about other people's successes and the support offered when people run into difficulties! I'm glad I found you all!

Now what I haven't mentioned is we took out two car loans, mine in Jan 2016, DF's in May 2015... I think they'll feature on the 2017 thread

This is such a great accomplishment! It really is quite amazing what we can do when we act with intention. I know that for DH and I, using YNAB made the difference for us because it helped us really see our money and be much more purposeful in how we spent it. I will soon be writing up a 2016 postmortem too once our final paychecks arrive this week.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Ahhh such amazing relief from the acupuncture!! I felt instantly better. I had acupuncture and cupping done, and he also put K tape on my back. Still a little sore, but more just like "I pulled a muscle" sore, not "I can't take a deep breath or sneeze without crying" sore. I'm going back Thursday for a follow up appointment. Definitely impressed and happy I called him!

 

[amalone1013]

This is such a great accomplishment! It really is quite amazing what we can do when we act with intention. I know that for DH and I, using YNAB made the difference for us because it helped us really see our money and be much more purposeful in how we spent it. I will soon be writing up a 2016 postmortem too once our final paychecks arrive this week.

Thanks! I look forward to your post lol, I like seeing everyone's numbers/progress. YNAB really helped us, especially DF with all of the features. He likes being able to start estimating the next month with the last month's income principle, and being able to check categories on his phone. I had been using Mint for awhile, but YNAB made it easy to 'combine' our finances even though our accounts are all separate right now - we plan to combine after the wedding.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Thanks! I look forward to your post lol, I like seeing everyone's numbers/progress. YNAB really helped us, especially DF with all of the features. He likes being able to start estimating the next month with the last month's income principle, and being able to check categories on his phone. I had been using Mint for awhile, but YNAB made it easy to 'combine' our finances even though our accounts are all separate right now - we plan to combine after the wedding.

YNAB has been the best tool for us. We were sort of floundering financially for 8-10 months after our wedding. I was so used to budgeting for just myself that it seemed hard for me to budget for both of us. We were spending more than we were making, but not really realizing it until the credit card bill seemed to be getting out of control. I realized by May of this year that we needed to do something to change the trajectory. Someone on this board had talked about YNAB. The thing that really sold it was that DH liked using it and it got him much more involved with the financial decisions. We are so much stronger as a couple now because we are working together towards our financial goals, rather than bickering over little things.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Our last paychecks of 2016 just hit, so here is the 2016 round up:

• Paid off $6,755 in credit card debt, bringing our credit card debt down to $0.
  • All future expenses placed on credit cards will be backed with existing income/savings.

• Paid off the remainder of DH's student loan that totaled $9000.
  • No more student debt!

• Saved $7,000 to cover IVF expenses.

• Saved an additional $1,500 towards our emergency fund.

• Including employer match, saved $14,105 towards retirement.

I am very pleased with what we accomplished this year. We were extremely frugal once we started using YNAB in June, putting any funds we can manage towards our credit card debt. Once DH got his job in September, it really accelerated everything and we were able to eliminate the credit card debt and student loan quickly after that.

Our goals for 2017:

• Make extra payments each month on our mortgage, with the goal of paying off the house completely within 10 years.
  • If we can do it, that would be 14 years to pay off a 30-year mortgage.

• Make extra payments each month on my car, possibly paying it off completely by the end of the year.

• Save an additional $6000 towards our emergency fund.

• Save $6000 towards baby expenses.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Just wanted to come back here and report my year end totals!

The final payment for DH's car FINALLY came out this morning! After a $1001.13 payment, I can finally say we have NO CAR LOAN!!!

That is $577 back into the budget every month!! We had just over $13,000 left on it at the beginning of the year and now it is wiped out! woohoo, that is a good feeling!!

All in all, between the car and two of our student loans, we paid off $16,597.85 this year! That total does not include my monster student loan with a payment of $815/mo either, since I am not committed to paying that one down due to public service loan forgiveness.

Thanks for all the support and encouragement, everyone!

 

[DnA2010]

2016- I was pregnant so this year was about preparing for me to be off work with baby (4 months into that!)

We didn't travel and cut our spending way back by eliminating extra spending, very little eating out, buying second hand etc- through doing this, we have been able to pay cash for some big necessary spends:
-new to us 2010 Honda CRV (13K I think it cost- been saving)
-2.5K in vet bills for my horse
-laptop

We have also started overpaying our mortgage a bit, with the plan go up it when I go back to work

We also built up our bank account/savings to accommodate me being off- luckily in Canada we do get some money from the govt maternity benefit if you had been working which is nice.

Upwards and onwards- at one time we had student loans, credit card debt, but worked hard at paying. Now the only debt we carry is mortgage- although we have credit cards, always paid off right away